TBE Makes List of Top 150 Blogs for Entrepreneurs

The Boston Entrepreneur is proud to be included in Open Business’s list of Top 150 Blogs for Entrepreneurs. Being named in a list acknowledging TBE’s contribution to entrepreneurship is an honor.

The Power of Numbers

We’ve all heard it, to assume is to make an “ass” at of “u” and “me.” Making business decisions based on feelings, preferences, and observations are marred by biased assumptions. Strong businesses decisions emerge from fact; and there are no stronger facts than numbers. Quantitative analysis is essential to business decisions; it’s the power of numbers.

Quantitative Analysis – I have a simple process for performing quick quantitative analysis.

Step 1) Identify the Desired Destination – Know where you want the numerical data to take you, why the data will take you there, what the data can tell you, and how the data is working. Without knowing your destination, you may quickly get lost. Know your destination.

Step 2) Collect and Organize the Numbers – Finding the numbers is not easy. Choose whether to manually gather the data through surveys or to collect it from published (or unpublished) sources. If you encounter trouble collecting data, speak to a librarian (they are expert data gatherers and can be your best free resource). Once you have your data, organize it properly and you will get to your destination efficiently. Organizing your data can be as easy to choosing the order of the columns or as difficult as creating tables within Excel.

Step 3) Manipulate the Numbers – Now that the collected data is organized, can you get to your destination with the data in its current state? If not, then figure out what needs to be done, and do it. Make sure you don’t ruin the value of the numbers with your manipulations.

Step 4) Get the Facts – Use your answer to the question, how is the data working to get to your destination?, to apply calculations to the numerical data (collected & manipulated). The results will provide you with facts. These facts will be used to make your decisions.

Step 5) Don’t Take the Results for What They Are – Finding patterns in large outputs is like searching for a needle in a haystack. The output of facts may seem sufficient to make your decision, but pictures tell a thousand words…

Step 6) Graph the Results & Make the Decision – Graph the outputs. Graphical dashboards are valuable components of decision making because they show patterns that one might miss by just looking at the raw numerical facts. More outputs produce more factual support, but also more data and better graphs. Better graphs produce easily interpretable facts, which are used to make strong concrete business decisions. The graphs accurately get you to your destination.

Again, this is a simple process I use to make concrete business decisions. In the context of more time, resources, and risk, I would apply statistical and economical regression and forecasting to make stronger factual business decisions. The importance lies in using numerical data to provide factual insights in making business decisions, demonstrating the power of numbers.

TR35 Winners: EmTech08

And the winners are…

TR35 Humanitarian of the Year – Aimee Rose – ICx Technologies

TR35 Innovator of the Year – JB Starubel - Tesla Motors, Inc.

Competitive Capture Link Building for SEO

I’ve recently been researching Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and come across a great tool called SEOQuake. SEOQuake is available as a plug in for Firefox 3.0 and also for download for other browsers at www.seoquake.com. The tool pulls information from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and other services. Overall, the SEOQuake tool provides users with valuable “one-stop” SEO information.

SEOQuake provides quick links to the Google Page Rank, number of in-directing links, the url of in-directing links, the number of landing pages to a given website, the number of links to internal pages, the number of external links on a page, and other valuable information optimizing search engine rankings. My favorite SEOQuake link is to Yahoo’s Site Explorer, which provides the location of all in-directing links. I utilize the Yahoo Site Explorer tool by targeting an identified keyword. I Google search the identified keyword, and start by clicking on the highest ranked link; once the highest ranked page loads I click the Yahoo Site Explorer link from the SEOQuake toolbar and a new tab opens with the listing of the pages with in-directing links. I then analyze the websites with the in-directing links and look for opportunities to create in-directing links from these pages to my website. I repeat this process with the second highest website for the target keyword and continue through the top ranked sites. I call this technique “Competitor Capture Link Building.”

Competitor Capture Link Building is one of many uses for the SEOQuake tool. Please share your thoughts on Competitive Capture Link Building, other link building techniques and ways you use SEOQuake to optimize your search engine rankings.

Social Networking’s Future?

As I blogged after attending the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, the social networking boom amazes me. I continuously ask myself questions to better understand the future of social networking. Most of the answers are speculation, but with knowledge of the history of social networking one can formulate educated predictions. Please take a look at these questions and provide your predictions in the comments section.

Questions?

Is there a need for both formal and informal personal profiles? Will social networks provide users the ability to create multiple profile view options for select friends (personal view, professional view, family view)? (ie. A shared picture marked for friend and family view will NOT be available to friends with professional view access)

Will people join niche social networks? Or are niche groups on larger social networks sufficient?

What is the future for applications? What tools exist for application management? What are the wants and needs of people regarding application management? Do applications need social networks?

Will the larger social networks expand beyond their current services and release new products targeting specific customers (ie. Facebook Corporate Edition, LinkedIn HR Solutions, Etc.)? What is the future of corporate social networking and file & knowledge management? Will the established social networks enter corporate social networking and file & knowledge management?

What is the lifecycle of a social network? Why have successful social networks failed? What activities cause users to delete profiles?

The Ultimate Question: Will one social network become the “one-stop-shop?”

Interesting Statistics:

According to Compete.com over the past year the number of visits per month for MySpace is down 27% (buts still over 830M visits) while Facebook is up 36% (with almost 361M visits), LinkedIn is up 749% (with only 20M visits), and Twitter is up 8373% (with almost 15M visits).

The Art of Corporate Blogging

Last week I cam across a great blog post titled “7 Reasons Why Corporate Blogs Are Absolutely Useless.” Eventhough I disagree with the author, Ben Jones, I find the post thought provoking. Please find the 7 reasons from Ben’s blog (http://ben-means-business.com) and my response following the excerpt:

“Reason#1: Fear of Transparency

People who read blogs expect to “know” the author, and participate in discussions with the author and other readers. They enjoy an atmosphere that is genuine and has a “living room” feel. In other words, they expect you to acknowledge problems, fixes, and incidents instead of using your blog to further validate cover-ups. Remember, PR ploys are for people who read the newspaper. Blog readers are a different breed and they respect and embrace what’s “real”.

Reason#2: Infrequent Posting

Even if you’ve created great content on your blog, people will stop visiting after they drop by a few times and there’s nothing new. A blog requires time to maintain and is important enough to assign somebody to the task exclusively.

Reason#3: Too Much Advertising

Advertisements, product introductions, and the like are great material for blogs. However, don’t overdue it. Remember, you have a website to market your great products. You have a blog to market your great company. Don’t confuse the two.

Reason#4: Blog is Just Plain Boring

Doesn’t have to be stocked full of information…Give them a peek “inside” the company. Tip: Post pictures from company gatherings, employee awards, run contests, polls, etc… Just make it interesting.

Reason#5: Blog Doesn’t Allow Feedback

Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought that blogs were meant to create discussion. If not, what makes them different from a website? Needless to say, I was absolutely floored to find that most corporate blogs don’t allow comments. Interesting…to say the least.

Reason#6: Lack of Participation

People want the chance to hear you respond to their thoughts, concerns, feelings, etc… It’s makes your customers feel like they matter. Don’t just ask their opinion and leave them hanging. Respond, and do so with grace, confidence, and a nice disposition.

Reason#7: Blog Lacks Substance

Your company already has arms, legs, and feet(yours and your employees), but none of those things are more important and/or powerful than having a voice. A blog gives your company a voice. So value that voice and use it with purpose.” (http://ben-means-business.com/7-reasons-why-corporate-blogs-are-absolutely-useless, June 16, 2008.)

I responded as follows:

First-rate blogging organizations benefit both the organizations and their customers. Well done corporate blogs are dynamic; they provide value to the public (hopefully future customers), but the blog has no value unless the public utilizes it, thus the organization must convince the public to choose to read it (while not seeming self-serving). The best strategy to direct people to a corporate blog without seeming self-serving is to create one which is NOT self-serving; create value for the public, embrace and promote participation, interact with the readers (reply to comments), and DO NOT promote. The best corporate blogs artfully present problems, which they have the ability to solve, and provide a piece to the solution. For many, the piece is good enough to independently solve the problem, but others will research further into the corporate blogger and become quality leads. The small sample of corporate blogs I’ve read impress me, and I’ve learned some great knowledge from them. One blog continuously comes to mind while typing this post: HubSpot out of Cambridge, MA… http://blog.hubspot.com/.

I am interested in knowing others thoughts and feelings about corporate blogging. Please utilize the comments section for your opinions.

Get Out or Get Out!

Get Out or Get Out! Get out from behind the desk or get out of business. My former company’s downfall was partially due to my affinity for staying in front of my computer, I was scared to “get out.” Tearing myself away from the task at hand scared me; I was scared the business would fall behind and ultimately fail. My business ended up falling behind and failing, not because of incomplete tasks, but rather due to alienating the company from the outside world. Disconnect yourself from the business, go outside, observe your surroundings, and implement your observations into your business.